


everything's alright in vc2

by bluesandbirds



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, IRL Fic, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, it's all platonic, soft, they're best friends!! all of them!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28281051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesandbirds/pseuds/bluesandbirds
Summary: being a sixteen year-old kid doing high energy streams almost every night in front of 200 thousand people on the internet can take a toll.tommy would know.some nights you don't feel it. some nights you don't feel anything at all.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 90
Kudos: 823
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	everything's alright in vc2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qar/gifts), [like_theletter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/like_theletter/gifts).



> this is an irl fic! it's not at all what i usually write, but it's dedicated to my friends, i hope y'all like it :)

January 16, 2021.

It's a big day for the Dream SMP, as per Wilbur-established tradition. Tommy's been waiting for this day, hinting obnoxiously to his viewers about _big streams coming up this week you won't wanna miss 'em and also if you could just check that subscribe button..._

And now it's here.

He's read the script, the bullet points Dream dumped into the Discord, went over them again and again as to not mess up the meticulous plot.

He wrote the script. Spent hours in calls with his friends, drafting and suggesting and vetoing the perfect way for their story to unfold.

So why can he not remember what happens next? (Why can he not understand what's happening now?)

Focus, Tommy, focus.

Dream is saying something. Something loud and aggressive. Right, he's making demands. Cutting a deal with Tubbo and L'Manburg. It's supposed to go wrong. Tommy's supposed to get angry. Dream's supposed to burn the disc tonight. (Which disc? _Cat_ or _Mellohi_? _You should know, Tommy, you wrote this_.)

Big Q and Dream are going back and forth right now, so Tommy reaches for that comfortable, playful anger—like a little spitfire in his chest—to fuel the whirlwind word vomit that'll get clipped and tweeted for days to come. 

He comes up empty.

Okay, that's fine.

He's just preparing after all. He has a few beats to get his shit together before the disc burning happens.

The Coke can off to the side of his desk glints invitingly, so he gives in to the siren song of caffeine and sugar and reaches for it. Tommy tilts back in his chair to chug the contents. A single drop hits the back of his throat. Empty. He sighs and puts it down.

Tubbo says something that he completely misses, sound traveling through his headphones into one ear and out the other, disappearing into the air. Tommy's got one side of his headset partially off so he can listen to the silence of his room next to the muffled speech of his friends.

Tommy tries to go back, to hit the left arrow on his mental VOD, but his brain is buffering and the connection is bad and metaphors are hard and now Wilbur's speaking.

Tommy's so tired. He smothers a yawn and tries to school his face back into anger, to give his audience something to work with. It feels weird. And unnatural. And fake. He wants to drop the mask so bad.

"I don't know if you should do this," Wilbur says and his voice is the light, wispy tone of his character, but there's genuine urgency running underneath it.

(He's got Tommy's stream up on his second monitor. His pseudo little brother reacts to things seconds too late, like bad latency between what's happening on screen and what's happening in his brain. Wilbur worries his lip.)

Dream, firmly in character, responds, "Of course I should. Tommy sacrificed his discs for L'Manburg once. Now, he'll do it again."

And then he presses _Q_.

The little disc disappears into the one block area of fire.

This is it. This is _the_ moment. Maybe the most climatic moment in the history of the Dream SMP.

But all Tommy can do is stare blankly at his screen and blink rapidly to quell the burning in his eyes.

 _Sensitive eyes,_ he thinks, _I've just got sensitive eyes._

It's late and his screen's bright and Dream is neon green and so if he feels like crying it's because he's got sensitive eyes.

But he doesn't want to cry. Because he's TommyInnit. Because he's a Big Man™. Because he's in front of 300 thousand strangers on the Internet.

 _The Twitter bird's a vulture_ , Wilbur had once said to him, _they've all got their little hashtags ready, looking for the slightest weakness and then_ bam _you're carrion_ _._

Dream's still shouting, Tommy notices, still rattling off his speech about _responsibility_ and _lessons_ and _consequences._

It sounds good. Very real. Impressive acting. He's proud of his friend. Dream's doing so well.

Tommy is not.

He's glad his glazed-eye zombie look won't be making it into the animatic.

"You sick bastard!" Quackity shouts.

"You won't get away with this!" Niki shouts.

"Don't fucking move!" Fundy shouts.

 _They're carrying this_ , Tommy thinks wryly.

All the voices overlap, crashing waves of noise, of emotion, of chaos, and Tommy can't take it. Tommy wants out, out, out.

A quiet voice cuts through it all. “Tommy?”

The cacophony of the call dies down to listen for an answer.

They hold their breath.

This is the moment.

Nothing comes.

Tommy wills himself to move. To react. To not just sit there, gaping stupidly at his computer screen.

He's supposed to be angry. He's supposed to be sad. He's supposed to be showing off that one year in his school's theatre program playing _The Dentist_ in _Little Shop of Horrors._

He just feels like shit.

Tubbo speaks in that same gentle tone. “You wanna go to VC2, big man?”

Mouth open, he's got nothing to say. No joke or speech or quip on his tongue to defuse or ignite the situation.

His mouth falls shut.

“Yeah, let's go to VC2.” And then Tubbo's disconnected from the call.

Robotically, Tommy follows suit.

(Tubbo knows his best friend. On and off camera. He recognizes where the spaces blur between _TommyInnit_ and _Tommy, innit?_ There's the waver in his tone. The jerky movements of his mouse. The mask is faltering.)

Tommy's cursor hovers over VC2, a little white, gloved hand ready to pull him into the channel with Tubbo. All he has to do is move his finger. Just twitch his finger. Crook his finger.

The icons of his friends all sit in VC4, line after line filling up the column so VC5 isn't even visible.

His chat rushes past in the corner of his eye. A pixel abyss of text, thousands of words screamed at him that he'll never read or hear.

He musters some pep. "Don't worry, chat, we'll just have a talk with Tubbo for a second, a millisecond, yeah?"

Phrased like a question as if he'll get an answer.

Tommy takes a breath and clicks his mouse.

The _join call_ sound fills him with immeasurable dread that it might as well be a gunshot or a death knell.

Tubbo waits for a second before speaking, giving Tommy the space to break the silence himself. He does not take it.

“Are we grieving or griefing?” Tubbo says.

Tommy laughs a little—an awful, hollow sound—both terribly sorry and immensely grateful for his best friend.

Tubbo hums. "Bad day?"

"The worst." He cringes at his own voice, rough and wrecked like Wilbur's after a game of Hole in the Wall.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"I'm live, Tubbo," he says, a fact impossibly hard to ignore, camera lens burning into his forehead. He blinks with sudden clarity. "So are you."

"Yep."

"Shit, Tubbo—"

He can practically hear the dismissive hand wave. "They're fine. They can go watch Eret or Niki. We're just chilling in here."

Tubbo hit 250k concurrent viewers during this stream, peak viewership for him. And he wants to throw it away just to talk to Tommy about his feelings.

Tommy's eyes sting and he wonders how he got so lucky to raid a guy like Tubbo three years ago.

He sniffs. "You should go back to the call."

A stern, "Tommy."

"I'll be fine, I think I just need to end stream. Clear me 'ead." He puts on a voice at the end to hide how it shakes.

"I can end too—"

Despite his friend not being able to see him, Tommy shakes his head vigorously. "No, no, no, don't—don't do that for me."

Tubbo says, "You know I don't mind."

"Well, I do," Tommy replies, "Go on. I'll send you a raid."

There's a frown in his friend's voice. "Wilbur's not streaming, can I tell him to join?"

Tommy sighs. _Big Brother. Oh joy._

"Yeah, sure," he says because if not Tubbo would never let him off.

"Call me later?" Tubbo prompts.

Tommy drops his head in a nod. "Of course, big man."

Seemingly satisfied for now, Tubbo leaves VC2.

It's Tommy alone.

His chat's still going off to the side. He can imagine the questions, the clips, the uppercase _AWW_ 's that make his skin crawl.

Instead of looking, he busies himself with starting up the raid and host for Tubbo, doing his best to ignore the chat.

When he does summon the nerve to glance over, what he sees stops him in his tracks.

_Pizzaaa233: tmmyHeart_

_DrawThatRedstone: tommy support!_

And then a wall of purple hearts and a handful of LesbianPride emotes that he appreciates just as much.

A disbelieving smile tugs at his lips.

_Yeah, his PogChampers aren't so bad, are they?_

His hand raises in a salute, a _tmmy7_ for the real ones.

"I'll see you later, boys," he says—a few decibels too quiet, too genuine for TommyInnit—and then they're gone.

It's just Tommy, staring at his OBS and too bright screen.

There's movement on his second monitor, a new buzz in his ears that means someone's joined the voice channel.

Wilbur.

Wilbur, who loves this story, who gave it life and themes and meaning, who will be so upset that Tommy just shat all over his beloved creation.

The words bubble out before he can stop them, “I’m sorry, I know this is supposed to be a big moment in the story, but I just—I can’t, tonight. I'm not... I'm not feeling like a big man tonight, Big Dubs."

Levelheaded as always, Wilbur answers his blabbering with, "Tommy, calm."

"I am calm," Tommy shoots back.

"No," Wilbur says, "you are not."

"Bitch."

"There he is." And then softer, "Tommy, I'm not mad, bro."

"Just disappointed?" Tommy guesses.

"Just worried," Wilbur says firmly.

"For no reason," he says, "I'm just being a little bitch."

"You're not a little bitch, Tommy."

"Can I get that in writing?"

Wilbur snorts.

Tommy blows out a breath.

"I just couldn't do it, Will," he says. His vision's gone all blurry. His eyes burn because they're dry, and he doesn't feel like crying, so he just sits in his chair that he's had since forever and blinks like he jitterclicks. "I'm so tired."

"I'm sure the animators will give you another chance."

His hands curl into fists where they're braced against the desk. "Everyone was so excited and Dream worked so hard on his speech and I've just let them all down."

"Tommy," Wilbur says, soft and warm and way too earnest, "You could never let us down."

He laughs wetly. "Fuck, Will, there's no Twitch chat here. You don't have to be farming _aww_ 's."

"I mean it, Tommy, everyone here loves you and everyone here has bad days. You're sixteen and there's a crazy amount of pressure on you. Nobody's gonna be mad if it gets too much. _You are, and will always be, more important than the content._ "

Tommy glances to the side. Little red bubbles with white numbers next to icons of his friends.

_DIRECT MESSAGES_

**_12_** _Dream_

 **7** _Ph1LzA_

 **_4_ ** _quackity_

_**3** Cyberonix_

_**3** Nihachu_

**_1_ ** _Technoblade_

_**1** JackManifoldTV_

**_1_** _BadBoyHalo_

 **_1_ ** _Bitzel_

 **_1_** _awesamdude_

 **_1_ ** _Fundy_

Half of them are still streaming.

Tommy swallows. "Thank you, Will, I... thank you."

"Anytime, TommyInnit@hotmail.co.uk."

He groans and Wilbur laughs and everything's a little alright.

Tommy finally lets out that yawn he's been stifling for an hour and a half and says, "I think I'm gonna head off now, get some rest so this doesn't happen again." He pauses, eyes flicking back at his open Discord. "Tell everyone I'm alright, yeah?"

Wilbur makes a noise of affirmation. "Good night, gremlin child."

"Good night, elderly man."

And with a chime, he's off.

Tommy exits out of his tabs, promising himself that he'll read the messages in the morning, and pulls off his headphones, setting them down on the desk. He hesitates before pushing away his chair and getting up. Sitting where it would be just out of view of the camera, his phone comes to life under a light touch. He scrolls up through dozens of texts he received while on _do not disturb._ Opening one thread, he begins typing.

**D-Money**

tommy?

im sorry i fucked up

tommy are you ok

im sorry

All's good big man 👍

Don't worry about it

im always here if you need me

<3

Ew

...

<3

Tommy smiles to himself, alone in his dark room with soft blue light illuminating his features. He switches off his phone and places it face down on his desk.

Yeah, he's alright.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is  
> i speedran it cuz i was feeling it idk


End file.
